We’re hiring a lot right now, so I’ve been going through tons of case studies and interviews. One thing that keeps coming up is the MVP—how to decide what it actually should be.
In these case studies, the context is always that you’re a travel tech company looking to launch a new vertical. There are a bunch of steps before the MVP decision, but the part I want to focus on is how people define it—because it’s usually hit or miss. Mostly miss.
A lot of people try using the MoSCoW method, but honestly, it just ends up being a subjective list of what the MVP should do. I’d like to see a more objective way of making that call.
Here’s how I think about it:
Critical Path to Money from the Value: Start with working backwards from the growth AAARR framework.
Money:
- First off, how is this new vertical going to make money? There are three known ways to do that online: transactions, referrals, or subscriptions. Pick one for your MVP.
Value:
- What user action leads to revenue? (Revenue)
- What do users need to generate your revenue? (Activation)
- How are you going to make them use it? (Acquisition)
- How do you get people to know about the product (Awareness)
Since travel is so low-frequency, retention can usually be ignored for an MVP, at least early on.
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